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Nahum

1An oracle concerning Nineveh. The book of the vision of Nahum of Elkosh.

The Consuming Wrath of God

² A jealous and avenging God is the Lord,
   the Lord is avenging and wrathful;
the Lord takes vengeance on his adversaries
   and rages against his enemies.
³ The Lord is slow to anger but great in power,
   and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.

His way is in whirlwind and storm,
   and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
⁴ He rebukes the sea and makes it dry,
   and he dries up all the rivers;
Bashan and Carmel wither,
   and the bloom of Lebanon fades.
⁵ The mountains quake before him,
   and the hills melt;
the earth heaves before him,
   the world and all who live in it.

⁶ Who can stand before his indignation?
   Who can endure the heat of his anger?
His wrath is poured out like fire,
   and by him the rocks are broken in pieces.
⁷ The Lord is good,
   a stronghold on a day of trouble;
he protects those who take refuge in him,
⁸   even in a rushing flood.
He will make a full end of his adversaries,^*
   and will pursue his enemies into darkness.
⁹ Why do you plot against the Lord?
   He will make an end;
   no adversary will rise up twice.
¹⁰ Like thorns they are entangled,
   like drunkards they are drunk;
   they are consumed like dry straw.
¹¹ From you one has gone out
   who plots evil against the Lord,
   one who counsels wickedness.

Good News for Judah

¹² Thus says the Lord,
‘Though they are at full strength and many,^*
   they will be cut off and pass away.
Though I have afflicted you,
   I will afflict you no more.
¹³ And now I will break off his yoke from you
   and snap the bonds that bind you.’

¹⁴ The Lord has commanded concerning you:
   ‘Your name shall be perpetuated no longer;
from the house of your gods I will cut off
   the carved image and the cast image.
I will make your grave, for you are worthless.’

^{15 *}Look! On the mountains the feet of one
   who brings good tidings,
   who proclaims peace!
Celebrate your festivals, O Judah,
   fulfil your vows,
for never again shall the wicked invade you;
   they are utterly cut off.

The Destruction of the Wicked City

2A shatterer^* has come up against you.
   Guard the ramparts;
   watch the road;
gird your loins;
   collect all your strength.

² (For the Lord is restoring the majesty of Jacob,
   as well as the majesty of Israel,
though ravagers have ravaged them
   and ruined their branches.)

³ The shields of his warriors are red;
   his soldiers are clothed in crimson.
The metal on the chariots flashes
   on the day when he musters them;
   the chargers^* prance.
⁴ The chariots race madly through the streets,
   they rush to and fro through the squares;
their appearance is like torches,
   they dart like lightning.
⁵ He calls his officers;
   they stumble as they come forward;
they hasten to the wall,
   and the mantelet^* is set up.
⁶ The river gates are opened,
   the palace trembles.
⁷ It is decreed^* that the city^* be exiled,
   its slave women led away,
moaning like doves
   and beating their breasts.
⁸ Nineveh is like a pool
   whose waters^* run away.
‘Halt! Halt!’—
   but no one turns back.

Habakkuk

1The oracle that the prophet Habakkuk saw.

The Prophet’s Complaint

² O Lord, how long shall I cry for help,
   and you will not listen?
Or cry to you ‘Violence!’
   and you will not save?
³ Why do you make me see wrongdoing
   and look at trouble?
Destruction and violence are before me;
   strife and contention arise.
⁴ So the law becomes slack
   and justice never prevails.
The wicked surround the righteous—
   therefore judgement comes forth perverted.

⁵ Look at the nations, and see!
   Be astonished! Be astounded!
For a work is being done in your days
   that you would not believe if you were told.
⁶ For I am rousing the Chaldeans,
   that fierce and impetuous nation,
who march through the breadth of the earth
   to seize dwellings not their own.
⁷ Dread and fearsome are they;
   their justice and dignity proceed from themselves.
⁸ Their horses are swifter than leopards,
   more menacing than wolves at dusk;
   their horses charge.
Their horsemen come from far away;
   they fly like an eagle swift to devour.
⁹ They all come for violence,
   with faces pressing^* forward;
   they gather captives like sand.
¹⁰ At kings they scoff,
   and of rulers they make sport.
They laugh at every fortress,
   and heap up earth to take it.
¹¹ Then they sweep by like the wind;
   they transgress and become guilty;
   their own might is their god!

¹² Are you not from of old,
   O Lord my God, my Holy One?
   You^* shall not die.
O Lord, you have marked them for judgement;
   and you, O Rock, have established them for punishment.
¹³ Your eyes are too pure to behold evil,
   and you cannot look on wrongdoing;
why do you look on the treacherous,
   and are silent when the wicked swallow
   those more righteous than they?
¹⁴ You have made people like the fish of the sea,
   like crawling things that have no ruler.

¹⁵ The enemy^* brings all of them up with a hook;
   he drags them out with his net,
he gathers them in his seine;
   so he rejoices and exults.
¹⁶ Therefore he sacrifices to his net
   and makes offerings to his seine;
for by them his portion is lavish,
   and his food is rich.
¹⁷ Is he then to keep on emptying his net,
   and destroying nations without mercy?

God’s Reply to the Prophet’s Complaint

2I will stand at my watch-post,
   and station myself on the rampart;
I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,
   and what he^* will answer concerning my complaint.
² Then the Lord answered me and said:
Write the vision;
   make it plain on tablets,
   so that a runner may read it.
³ For there is still a vision for the appointed time;
   it speaks of the end, and does not lie.
If it seems to tarry, wait for it;
   it will surely come, it will not delay.
⁴ Look at the proud!
   Their spirit is not right in them,
   but the righteous live by their faith.^*
5 Moreover, wealth^* is treacherous;
   the arrogant do not endure.
They open their throats wide as Sheol;
   like Death they never have enough.
They gather all nations for themselves,
   and collect all peoples as their own.

The Woes of the Wicked

6 Shall not everyone taunt such people and, with mocking riddles, say about them,
‘Alas for you who heap up what is not your own!’
   How long will you load yourselves with goods taken in pledge?
⁷ Will not your own creditors suddenly rise,
   and those who make you tremble wake up?
   Then you will be booty for them.
⁸ Because you have plundered many nations,
   all that survive of the peoples shall plunder you—
because of human bloodshed, and violence to the earth,
   to cities and all who live in them.

⁹ ‘Alas for you who get evil gain for your houses,
   setting your nest on high
   to be safe from the reach of harm!’
¹⁰ You have devised shame for your house
   by cutting off many peoples;
   you have forfeited your life.
¹¹ The very stones will cry out from the wall,
   and the plaster^* will respond from the woodwork.